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Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Charlotte Update

Found out why Charlotte was so busy this morning. She was making the fancy white design in her web. She was at rest this afternoon, so I managed to get a clearer picture. Since my earlier post, I have discovered this is an argiope spider, also known as an orb weaver and also known as a writing spider due to the designs they make in their web as you can see in this photo.

The designs provide stability to the web and even though it reduces their "catch" percentage, it also reduces the tendency of birds to fly into the web.

2 comments:

R Ging
said...

We have tons of these spiders down here. We call them "garden spiders". You don't want to drive the riding mower under a tree until you make sure there aren't any spiders that are going to end up on your head... I would jump out of my skin. I have no problem with the occasional cotton-mouth or copper-head, but me and spiders do not mix! Since we live along a creek, we have trees full of these spiders all summer long.

She's probably got some egg sacks nearby. Ours made two last year and as soon as they hatched, she went off to die, I guess...never saw her again. I think I read somewhere they rebuild the zigzag thing every night.